The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 890, 2 May 1877, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1877.

The “ land fund in danger ” was the great cry upon which the Provincialists in this province relied, when lighting Abolition. Day after day avc Avere informed that our land revenue would be swallowed up if Provincial barriers Avere removed, and therefore it was the duty of all who Avished to see our land fund maintained intact, to tight for the then existing state of things. But notwithstanding those appeals nowhere in Ncav Zealand has Abolition been so universally accepted as in Canterbury. But bad there been any force in the argument, it would surely have influenced our votes. Our land revenue is the largest of any district in the colony, and it has been so usefully applied, that we would surely be inclined to resist any step Avhich would result in depriving us of it. Yet Provincialism was all but universally condemned at the late elections. We must, therefore, conclude that in the opinion of the people of this province there is no necessary connection between the continuance of Provincialism and the maintenance of our land fund. Indeed, this has been so often shoAvn, that Ave are astonished to find that there are still those who maintain the opposite alcav. It has been shown again and again that the allocation of the land fund to the provinces, depends upon the will of the General Assembly. As long as a majority are in favour of the present system being continued, the land fund is safe, hut no longer. There have

always been those in the House who have fought for making it colonial revenue, and the moment they can carry such a measure they will do so. The provinces existed before the famous compact of ISSG, of which we have heard so much; and although they have ceased to exist, the land fund of the provincial districts is still returned to them. It is always hinted, although never boldly stated, that under the new state of things our land fund is less secure than it was, that in some way the Colonial Parliament has more power over it than it had when provincialism existed. This is a pure misrepresentation. Under the county system the Councils have absolute power over the surplus land revenue in those parts of the colony where it is raised. Notwithstanding this, we arcfar from holding that the land fund of the colony is absolutely safe. Our necessities may soon be such that it will be impossible longer to allow it to remain untouched. But should that result ever happen, it will not be because provincialism has ceased to exist, but owing to the condition of our finances —a condition for which provincialism is alone to blame. Whatever Ave may hopes for from abolition in the future, it has come too late to save us from a mass of debt which is pressing heavily upon the resources of the colony. To it wc are indebted for those' political railways which are hanging like millstones round our neck. Because Canterbury had so many miles of railway constructed Avith'in her boundary, Nelson must have a proportionate number ; because a trunk line in Otago was being built, Avhich would open up a rich and fertile country, Auckland must have the Kaipara line made, OA T er which, for the next ten years, there will never he traffic enough to pay for the working expenses. Besides, even before the public Avorks scheme Avas inaugurated, the debt of the colony Avas always being added to on account of the provinces. If, therefore, our finances are in a dangerous state, and something must be done to put them on a sound basis, it is because the provinces once existed, and had they continued to the present moment, the same difficulty Avould have been staring us in the face.

lx an article on the war between liussia and Turkey, and the prospect of Great Britain getting entangled in it, the Thnuru Herald says ; —“ AVe believe we are correct in stating that the Governors of these colonies have already received a despatch directing them as to their conduct in the case of war. The instructions of the Secretary of State are, we understand, to the effect that any foreign invasion is to be resisted as far as possible ; but that, where resistance is impossible, any requisitions made by the enemy are to be complied with, the Empire undertaking to repay the sums thus levied. This assurance is calculated to inspire the colonies with confidence, and to do away with the impression that Great Britain would abandon her distant dependencies to their fate in the event of war. The Secretary of State’s despatch, in short, intimates that these colonies are deemed an integral part of the Empire as much as Yorkshire or the Channel Islands. Her Majesty cannot actually protect every point in her vast dominions ; but she encourages her people to light for themselves, and she promises to make good any loss that, they may suffer through the lack of her actual defence.”